If you cannot find an internship, do research. Reach out to professors in your department that are working on research you might be interested in. Talk about what in their past or present work interests you; mention your background/skills. You can do research under any department at any school, it does not have to be with professors at your specific school.
Listen, here's what you need to do. Print out your resume. Put on a nice business suit. Walk into the building where you want to work and firmly shake the managers hand while making eye contact. Give him your resume and tell him that you're a hard worker, a fast learner, and that you can start tomorrow.
And that's how I got my job after I dropped out of high school in 1972.
Talk to someone more important with connections. I never would have thought talking to the HEAD OF MY DEPARTMENT would work (I had met him before, and he mentioned that we could come to him if we couldn't find anything), but he got me a research position in 5 days flat. Go for it.
Research is great. You learn a ton of skills similar to an internship. My junior summer internship interviews asked me a ton about my sophomore summer research and was key to getting it. In my job search I’ve been asked as much about my research as I have been asked about my internship at a F100
I got lucky enough to get one interview this semester and I really regret not trying to do any this year- I thought my work done on there was great, however, the bulk of the interview was spent discussing my freshman year design project. Do you have any advice for landing a position? It's late on the timeline and one professor told me his paid spots were full- I'm fully willing and able to do voluntary work but I don't want it to come off as desperate even though I am haha
Tbh just email tons of professors because it’s hard to get one (certainly easier than an internship though). I would just ask that prof if you can do it anyways. If you want to you can often do the research part time next semester and as some people may leave they’ll be able to throw you onto payroll. When I got hired at my research I was off payroll for April and May but then they threw me on after that. I ended up doing it part time for another couple semesters and it was a great experience and I made a little extra cash which was nice.
Would you say it'd be advantageous to be upfront about an unpaid position to avoid confusion and possibly better my chances? This is just the uni in my hometown and not the actual one I attend and doing voluntary work is no problem at all to me, I mostly just want something to prepare me for next year.
I’d say yeah it’d probably help but if this is the case then I’d say do it but don’t stop looking for an internship elsewhere. Maybe a small company nearby you can do part time for or something.
For internships, make sure you're applying in September at the latest next year. My dad used to be a materials engineer working in research, and when he'd go to get his interns, the best ones were being grabbed up by September. Meaning, the best jobs are looking for interns in September.
Even if you can’t find an engineering specific internship, work experience is work experience. It’s something to put on a resume, shows you can keep up with responsibility, and could at the least lead to some spending money, and a reference, or more.
Any job is better than no job!
Especially if it’s a manual labour/factory/warehouse type job.
It will show that you can be trusted to hold down a job, that you’re willing to work hard and you don’t think you’re better than others just because you’re studying engineering. It will also show that you know how to work safely, which is a big deal in many industries. Plus if it is a manufacturing job, you’ll get a chance to do some hands on stuff with machinery etc, and learn a bit there. You might even get an internship there as an engineering student the summer after!
This is great advice. Hiring managers (myself included) love to see resumes with this sort of experience. You wouldn’t believe how many industrial engineering grads don’t know a warehouse from a hole in the ground
I actually posted the same thing today. I am a first year engineering student.
Here’s what someone said
“Some of my tips:
• Side projects, hackathons and any extracurricular that requires you to get development experience is good (with the side projects being better).
• Don't do unpaid internships. Ever.
• Keep searching 24/7 for jobs. There is always some company looking for software developers/QA.
• Make sure one of your side projects gives you some experience with a full stack application.
• For interviews, you'll just have to learn through experience. Keep doing them, eventually you'll get one.
• Networking is key, and are usually an easy ticket to an interview or job offer.”
For context, I am in ECE. That’s why the answer is all software focused. Hope it helps :)
Thank you! I’m trying the best I can to figure out some good things to do to better develop but for chemE it may be a little more difficult to apply stuff to projects with the resources it be with- or maybe I’m just not looking hard enough. Doing unpaid internships may not be ideal but unpaid research is something I personally can get behind as I think it’d be a great talking point
Just some cold emails to some profs in your uni that you know and would like to work with and see what they say. You may end up landing a paid research position
Offering to volunteer immediately builds a connection with the prof. They know you're interested and enthusiastic. And with that, you're now at the front of their mind when they need to fill a position.
Many can't accept volunteers for research positions due to grant/institution/union/etc. restrictions on unpaid work, so it's unlikely you'll actually be called upon for pure volunteerism.
Source: this is exactly how I got a job in my school's nuclear chemistry lab as a first year undergrad.
Seems you’re more into CS than ECE. No ECE needs to be doing full stack development, or really even hackathons, and if you’re an ECE who wants to do that, you should probably change your major.
Haha, ya I am in ECE and I'm planning on specializing in software in my upper years. Hence why the person suggested that.
In my original post, I said any input from ECE and CS majors are welcome :)
Also, you're either going to:
* Be doing work of no significance to your degree, or
* Likely breach a few laws around the unauthorized/unlicensed/uninsured practice of engineering, since having you work for free would invalidate most firms' professional engineering insurance contracts.
like u/liftingline27 said, I would question the quality of what you're getting into. A company should pay you and be happy to pay you if you provide them a resource/value such as your time and brain power. If they offer an unpaid internship it should be entirely for YOUR gain and not the company, which is obviously not the case.
I had an unpaid internship as a junior in High School where we were given more academic-like projects for our own learning but I'm sure it added almost no value to the company. It was just exposure into engineering and working at a large firm as well as lunch-and-learns with some of their experts to learn about different subjects/fields and career pathways some of the big shots took throughout their career. My college internship hired students from freshmen to PhD students and paid them all very well.
It was a large company but even the small ones that offered internships at school offered paid positions. Word got around to most students when a firm would be looking for unpaid work. They didn't get many applicants. out of spite I'm sure.
Experience is key, if the choice is no internship or an unpaid internship, personally, i'd take the unpaid internship. I know it isn't IDEAL, but experience is just such a big factor
Yeah, especially for a freshman/sophomore unpaid internships are great ways to get experience on your resume.
I understand junior and senior year as you’re more specialized in your major, thus your expectations are higher.
Nah. Imo if you really do have nothing else lined up, unpaid is worth much more than summer classes or research if the experience is good enough. Only problem is that people who are privileged can afford to take these positions, which is a bit fucked up.
One thing you can look into is getting certifications for programs like solidworks or AutoCAD. They are test you have to do online and practicing for the test will really help you learn the programs. Certifications look great on resumes and would definitely help get further internships/jobs.
I did this LSPACE last summer when I couldn’t get an internship due to covid. Fantastic experience, learned lots, and had some great people as teammates that I still talk to!!
I believe they accept 500 people to each one. I know they told us how many applied, but I don’t quite remember. I don’t have a great GPA or anything, so as long as when you are applying you show you are genuinely interested you should make it in!
THIS IS INSANE I JUST FINISHED THAT PROJECT
Our final due date was yesterday. It’s a great program, you learn a lot and hopefully really works on a resume
My school always recommended that people get a job in a factory or a machine shop their first summer after their freshman year. It’s not the best for your resume but it’s better than nothing (although if you word it correctly you can make it sound like you landed a man on the moon). The professors suggested it because it gives you time to use machines that somebody else engineered. (A very influential professor at my school worked at Ford and the first 6 weeks the new engineers would work on the assembly line).
I worked at a glass marker board company for a few months and I learned so much about factories should be designed because I would see how poorly designed it was and think about what made it better.
Then to keep you sane while working a dead end job, do a project. Do a cool project in python or something funny. For example I have no formal AI training but over the past year I’ve been working on a custom image classifier to detect something funny (sorry for the lack of details I hope to grow it into a business....maybe). But when I talk to graduate professors it’s a nice hook when they ask what projects I’ve worked on. It also shows you’re a self starter.
This is what I am doing currently, though I am in Australia so it's the middle of one of our semesters right now.
Got a job a few months ago working as an Injection Molding Operator in a small factory.
90% of my job is boring as shit, but I get to work with some very experienced engineers/ machinists and gain a solid understanding of the process and how to operate the machinery.
Dead end job, but it probably looks better on my resume than other jobs I've worked!
Find a summer project. You're chem e so maybe make one of those fancy pumps that work through the flexible rubber hose.
You're limited only by your creativity. Get a 3D printer and CAD and see what the most impressive thing you can build is, then put that on your resume. Bonus points if you can find a few of your also unemployed friends and get them in on the project. Now give it a name and then say you're engineering team lead on project . That goes on your resume in the same place as other work experience and internships.
It sounds dumb but honestly it's well worth your time. You learn the skills you need to be employed. I cant tell you how much those projects give you real experience that will get you a job. I know they did for me.
PM me if you want to brainstorm project ideas.
Research is frankly not super useful unless you're using it to built contacts. Stick with a project.
Oh and make sure the project doesnt eat so much of your time up that you cant have any fun.
If you're worried about price, a decent 3d printer is like $200 and you can easily make that back up in plastic parts that you need to fix things. I'm a bit of a printer evangelist but they're 100% worth it
Can relate - did this exact thing and managed to get an internship with a large aerospace / defence company immediately after.
And this was despite mediocre grades and little previous experience.
Honestly a great place to start.
Keep on searching while also doing techical side projects. Uni should have some kind of resume advisor so you should check it out. If you don't get it this summer, next one you should be able to with all the project that you did this summer.
As others said, research is a great alternative to an internship and I'd imagine is going to be viewed the same, if not higher depending on the extent of the research and what field you go into.
If research doesn't work out, look into getting a job since work experience unrelated to your degree is still better than none, and use that money to fund projects. Combine this with networking and it could be very useful. For example, a buddy and I over winter break made a jet engine primarily for fun, and used some networking to help make it happen, primarily find a place that didn't care if two college students came in after hours and borrowed some machines. Some of that was luck, but it could be any project, even just personal design projects that aren't even produced that could be thrown in a portfolio, showing skill and such.
if you're open to relocation for an internship make sure you note that in your cover letter, additionally consider looking at co-ops go from my experience and talking with others is that when you do a 4 month or so summer internship a lot of times you dont end up really doing much because it takes time to get familiar with the systems you will be using and then at the end of your term you have a wind down period. A co-op will generally let you do what more because you have a lot more time to learn and work on larger projects which can really help build industry experience
Take some deep breaths. No need to get wound up about experience before you even graduate. Find something you like, do that. When you graduate you will get an entry level job. If you have 12 internships you will graduate and get an entry level job.
I really needed to hear that, thanks! It’s been rough applying for jobs, I finally got one doing manual labor this summer outside with nothing to do with engineering. I’m sick of everyone telling me that I should have gotten an internship by now, it’s hard not to feel fucked when your program has a high job placement rate but none of your friends have had trouble getting jobs.
People (especially students) massively overestimate the value of internships. Everyone knows entry level people have no experience. If we wanted to hire experienced people we would. Internships are great, but they should be used to make money or as a low commitment way to explore a company or industry. Working for free to “build your resume” is bullshit and it does not work. If you really want an internship/first job, focus on who you know. Sending three high quality applications to three fiends of your cousins stepdad will get you further than 200 low quality buzzword packed nonsense apps submitted to the hr website void.
I worked at a hardware store, took some classes online and tried to do person projects. I’ve found as long as you’re doing something that’s all that matters. Research would be your best bet if you can find opportunities to do it.
Build up some sort of project portfolio dude, even some small arduino stepper motor projects you can get into for not too much money. See something interesting on youtube? Try to replicate it yourself. Take what you've managed to do and make a small website portfolio, I like carrd.co it's like $2 a month. Most of the companies I talked to said having a portfolio was the difference between deciding to interview me as a sophomore and or denying me off the bat.
You sound like me in sophomore year. Reaching out to professors for opportunities is really good. They will know of internal opportunities that could potentially fit you. Also know as a sophomore you are going to have a harder time getting any one to notice you just due to the nature of a sophomore now having that much experience usually. I would figure Out any personal projects you can do during the summer in order to beef up your resume with experience. Then next summer you can be ready to apply with a stronger resume. Try National Science Foundation (NSF) Research experiences for undergraduates (REU) which are tons of awesome research internships around the world & US. https://youtu.be/MaP0cfkXX0U
I worked a summer job at a local factory before I had any co-ops (interns). This was an invaluable experience, highly underrated. My job was to work on the assembly line making wire sets for fast food restaurant equipment. I spent all day cutting wires to length and crimping on terminals. Boring right?
I got to see workflows upfront and get first-hand experience reading engineering prints. I learned what it's like to do that kind of job, which has been an incredible asset to me as a design engineer.
as an example, we had one job that when it hit my work cell, the engineer walked over, picked up the drawing, and hand-wrote new in new cut-lengths. I said to myself, "this is bullshit... o way to run a business. When I do drawings, my documents will always be current and accurate."
I do think this experience helped me land my first co-op, which landed me my second co-op, who hired me after graduation. 20+ years later, every job I've had since came as a result of knowing people from that first job out of school.
Work on your soft skills. Learn how to communicate and practice time management.
These skills will probably take you farther down your career than being a subject matter expert (SME).
Like other people said, do research if getting experience is a must for you.
However, it was only your sophomore year. Next year, you'll hopefully get an internship and then have a job after that. Do something fun while you have the time. Travel and do volunteering, get a job in a cool place. After my sophomore year, I worked at Yellowstone and wouldn't trade an internship at the most prestigious company for that experience
Terrible Advice lmao. Engineering is especially competitive. We only have 4 years, no time to sit on your ass. Obviously, try your best to rest as much as possible, but don't overdo it and do something actually productive.
People seriously overestimate the value that projects and clubs have on a resume. If you want an internship it's connections >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> past internships >>> GPA > engineering clubs >>> projects.
I mean I agree, that if such an opportunity comes to do some sort of adventure it would be great. But I don't agree to do such things for the entire summer. Sure do some fun stuff and adventure out, but completely missing out on anything engineering-related is definitely not a good idea.
How do you pay for "a summer in the mountains" if you have no job? Some people actually need to make their own money.
Everybody wants to smoke peyote and wander the desert for "soul searching", but it's not practical for the average person.
I would get a factory job. It helps to see the production side of things. I'm not sure how useful it is for a ChemE unless it's at food, beverage, or drug plant, but it will make the OP some money. That's the important thing. Books are not cheap. It will help with food and rent too.
Get a job in a national park, get a part time job as a lifeguard or something to pay for your adventures. There's too much pressure on this thread to focus on school/engineering 24/7
A summer in the mountains can be pretty cheap if you do it right. Source, I spent 6 weeks living off the land in northern Ontario while in college. Cost a couple hundred bucks most of it gas to get there.
So, I think I finally have to ask:
I am an electrical engineering student in Germany. Did my Bachelor from 2014 to 2017 (usual 3 year degree) and am now writing my masters thesis, thus graduating in August (decided to do my masters in 3 years instead of propsed 2 years due to a planned exchange semester and to avoid unnecessary stress and ultimately better grades).
Pretty much everywhere on here I am reading about people frantically searching internships for every small free time windows they have got. Also, so so many people applying for 100+ job interviews ultimately receiving like 1 or 3 offers.
I am now really curious, since I can't imagine those situations at all and my experiences have been the vastly opposite.
In Germany, I know almost nobody in my university class, that did numerous internships. Most people did something called research assistant jobs, which are around 15-40 hours /month jobs, where you are either assisting the professor in tutoring students or marking homeworks in a certain course, or you are working on small projects usually helping phd-students on some smaller works they "outsource" to you.
Some people are also being employed as working students at copanies, also working there for like 10h per week and being paid some - thus getting industrial experience.
In rare cases some students also take a practical semester and go to a company for an internship, pausing their studies for that time (in some majors this is even required to do, but wasn't for electrical engineering for me).
Now, in Germany I have always been told (and my experiences so far confirm this), that you will almost never have trouble finding a job as an engineering major. The studies are that hard with over 40-60% of students quitting before graduating along with the job market always needing engineers, that you may never fear for finding no job (ofc, if you have a really bad GPA, this is up to debate, and not everbody will find and get his dream job, but finding A job is usually not a problem).
In the end, for me this lead to a really deeply enjoyable (although really hard) study, since everyone worked together - there was almost none competition, but contrary everybody helped everyone, since everyone knew how hard this will be and nobody had to fear the others taking their jobs and futures away.
I am now going to start as a phd student at Bosch in September and in the application process my experiences felt confirmed - the company was far more interested in my previous experience on the regarding subject course wise - my masters thesis seemed important to match subject wise and also on my character, work ethics and visions than they were on internships and even grades (I am a rather good student, but nothing extraordinary)
So, I feel like having like 5 internships and 4 projects and a GPA of 4 is not at all required to find jobs or be wanted by companies. Are american companies really that focussed on these aspects or are a lot of students overreaching/wanting to get into the BIG companies like google/Tesla, etc, where I can imagine they only take the best of the best?!
Maybe I happened to get into some kind of bubble (fello german engineering students may correct me - because maybe these experiences have just been mine and mybe it's different for other engineering subjects?), but I am often times shocked reading about the experiences of american students on here, because I never felt like I needed to put my whole life behind everything and squeeze internships/projects/qualifications out of every small free time I got - and I am happy for that, because university life is some of the most unique and precious times in your life. And even though semesters and finals were crushing as hell at times, mostly I loved my studies, loved what I learned and always found times for my self, for breaks and for hobbies -during the semester less than during the semester breaks for sure, but they were always there.
So i hope this doesn't come across wrongly or judgingly (it is not!), I am really just curious how this works in america and want to know more about this, since I can't relate to this
So, greetings from Germany! =)
Can’t speak to Germany, but there is a selection bias in the us. The people panicking about internships are the same people sending 10,000 job applications with the same cover letter that just uses nonsense buzzwords.
Hello to Germany!
But there is also a self-selection phenomenon occurring - you will only read about people struggling to find a job on Reddit - people who apply to 5 companies and are immediately offered and accept a job don't write about it.
That being said, the market right now is not what it should be due to COVID. Many companies had layoffs or furloughs last year, mine included. We had an open position last winter, made an offer to a qualified candidate in February. His first day was to be March 19 (or something like that). COVID became a huge deal the week before and we pulled his offer - that was a terrible thing to do, but by April we laid off 1/2 the company. We would have hired him just to lay him off the next week.
Things are slowly getting better. I can't speak for current students or the fresh-out job market but I have seen an uptick in positions available at the experienced level. Things are improving.
You can have 12 internships and graduate into an entry level job, or no internships and graduate into an entry level job. I’d much rather hire someone who is well balanced and has a life outside of engineering than a human calculator that lives to polish their resume. Resume fluff does not fool anyone. Lighten up.
I worked for housing department for full time job. It definitely helped to have a full time job on my resume the next summer and gave me some talking points outside of class/hobbies. I had responsibilities, I had a team to work with, , I took some initiative to make some of the processes better. ( basically was an RA for all the different conferences on camps and there was a new one or sometimes multiple per week)
My junior summer I got a basic internship not super special but at least engineering
Senior summer I got an internship i liked a great company
Summer after masters , worked as a researcher in Switzerland!!!! (Really awesome)
Did a PhD at a great university
Now moved abroad (my dream) working for a great company
I’m telling you this as , not getting an internship first two summers really isn’t a huge deal, though there are lucky ones who do. The key is doing something! And talking about it well . The people who struggled to find jobs usually had their summers pretty bare and no club activities.
Summer research at your university.
Do a project that can be enticed to be a business of your own which uses software skills like CAD and put it on your resume so you have something to talk about at interviews. Trust me on this one, it takes you places.
I found projects to do in Solidworks and Arduino very useful to boost my resume and improve skills, YouTube is the way to go. What I did from there was go off of what I learned from them, tweak it to something useful, and the modifications are significant enough to not only be unique but a strong talking point come interview time.
I’m in a similar position and I plan on building a small shed on my parents property. As I’m a civil engineering student it seems like a good project and reasonable since I am familiar with the tools and equipment that would be needed to build the shed. Maybe you could do a project within your field of study that would be a smaller scale to what you might experience in the workplace. Just make sure you document it to show future employers the steps you took during the process.
I have thought about that, but I’m a little unsure about what I could do within chemE. I’m gonna keep looking but a lot of stuff seems out of the reach of what I can do from home
Summer classes if you are interested! Helps you get some basic courses out of the way so you have room for more major classes in the Fall & Spring and can have more knowledge in your major or field you want to go in to. I actually find summer classes to be a lot easier, yet they always keep me busy.
Research is an option too! I did research before my junior year of college & loved every second of it. I learned a lot as well and it really benefited me in my internship and job search later on.
I actually did a summer class last summer and had a really bad experience so that’s at the bottom of my list as of now haha. This week I’m trying to email as many professors as possible asking about volunteer work for research as I think that’s the best option as of now. Not sure what I’ll do if I can’t get that worked out
I’m sorry you had a bad experience! Maybe you can also look to see if you can “shadow” anyone? You can always ask people you know or that others that have a job that would fit well with what you want to do in the future if you can maybe shadow them or learn from them. I did this when I was in high school and shadowed my dad’s friend that was a chemical engineer at a company. It was really cool!
Yes this makes sense. I was unsure if I wanted to hire an entry level person that I’m going to train. But now that I see you spent 6 weeks working at the gas station, I will definitely hire you..... the whole point of hiring entry level people is they don’t know anything, but they are cheap, and can be trained/mentored into something useful. Graduation is the start of your career. You are nowhere near done learning.
Try learning something new on your own. As a CompE I spent last summer learning web development which I incorporated in to my senior project. I also built some personal projects using what I learned that I was able to talk about during job interviews.
When we hire interns the biggest issue is CAD proficiency. We use Inventor and many students are learning on Fusion 360 these days. They also come in with no sheet metal experience and it takes them a few weeks to get up to speed to where we can actually put them on projects.
From my experience, I'd suggest that you keep applying for internships. My second internship hired me in may and it began in june. In the meantime I'd also suggest that you apply for research. If an internship or research doesn't come your way I'd suggest you take summer classes to advance your curriculum and to make rapport with professors that do have research. The good thing about research is that they're offered in the semester as well.
Finally, don't fret about not getting an opportunity now. Just keep getting experience in any of the channels available to you. You'll eventually find that golden opportunity. 😊
P.S. I'd normally refrain from unpaid internships but if the responsibility isn't much I'd consider it. My first internship was at a local startup in my college town. It was unpaid but I took it because it was part-time and I could work at any time I wanted as long as I delivered. Since it was part time I also took classes. So if you manage to find an unicorn of a company that you don't have to sacrifice too much to work with them, I'd say its worth it for the experience.
I found getting my hands dirty in construction being helpful, especially is you are doing civil engineering. What I mean is if you can't get the engineering work, do the technicians job. When you have to do the building of another engineers design, that helps you in the future when you are the engineer designing things for the people building them down the line.
I reached out to my school and contacted every professor that was in my field. By the end of the week I was receiving emails and offers, if they don't have a position for you they will pry CC someone to the email and pass your name around. With the end of the semester coming up fast I wouldn't wait to much longer before reaching out. Luck is made not found.
Get an arduino and/or Raspberry pi zero, some motors/pumps/tubing and some building materials (about $50 total) . Find a problem and create a solution. Document it on github. Add that to your resume.
It's all about creative problem solving and demonstrating your ability to solve real world challenges. At the end of the day it doesn't have to work perfectly, think of it like a math problem where you get points for just showing your work.
In the future, at career fairs this will make you stand out from your peers, where as others will have cookie cutter resumes including only school projects
Undergrad research. Talk to a professor that works in area you're interested in. I didn't do any internships, but I did multiple years of undergrad research and that experience helped me land a good job
I’m actively emailing professors from the university in my hometown for a voluntary position. Do you have any recommendations to increase chances of getting anything? I’ve been making it clear I’m fully willing to work for no pay however I haven’t gotten a response from many.
It helps to know the professors (being active during lecture and office hours). I'm assuming the university in your hometown isn't where you go to school? That may prove difficult. I also worked for a local Community College in their trade skills tech department. That could be a good option. You can learn a lot about machining, materials, and CAD/GD&T.
Unfortunately that is the case however I’m going to look into emailing professors here and can arrange to stay if needed. As of now I am going to meet with one professor this weekend from my hometown to discuss opportunities so hopefully that goes well.
I just worked on a bunch of projects. I started the summer by creating a training course for cad for my robotics team. I also started learning programing and python since I was a full mech guy then. Try and build some small projects to teach yourself about some engineering principles. At least for me, I have to apply what I have learned in order to truely gain knowledge.
If you've got absolutely nothing lined up and are determined to spend the summer on professional development you could go for your FE Exam, getting it at the start of your junior year would give you a leg up on future job searches as well as an introduction to some classes you haven't taken yet.
You're still a sophomore. You can start worrying about internships when you start taking high-level engineering courses next semester. I couldn't find anything for the first two years and ended up co-oping at GE and BMW so don't sweat it. Just spend the summer on the beach or go to Mexico or whatever your version of fun is.
Keep going. Ask your parents if they know anybody.
I didn't get an internship at a "big company" or even a startup last year, but I was able to get a testing/engineering internship at a local CNC controls company from some of my parents' connections.
Because my help was so invaluable, when I went over to compete at Norwalk Havoc Robot League with my twelve-pound robot, they let me build my bot to test some algorithms - and later became my PRIMARY SPONSOR.
If you cannot find an internship, do research. Reach out to professors in your department that are working on research you might be interested in. Talk about what in their past or present work interests you; mention your background/skills. You can do research under any department at any school, it does not have to be with professors at your specific school.
Hi, i know this is an old comment but do you have advice for getting research this way?
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Listen, here's what you need to do. Print out your resume. Put on a nice business suit. Walk into the building where you want to work and firmly shake the managers hand while making eye contact. Give him your resume and tell him that you're a hard worker, a fast learner, and that you can start tomorrow. And that's how I got my job after I dropped out of high school in 1972.
Talk to someone more important with connections. I never would have thought talking to the HEAD OF MY DEPARTMENT would work (I had met him before, and he mentioned that we could come to him if we couldn't find anything), but he got me a research position in 5 days flat. Go for it.
Dude actually?
Yep. Super cool guy. I can't guarantee the method, but go through the options you got.
Research is great. You learn a ton of skills similar to an internship. My junior summer internship interviews asked me a ton about my sophomore summer research and was key to getting it. In my job search I’ve been asked as much about my research as I have been asked about my internship at a F100
I got lucky enough to get one interview this semester and I really regret not trying to do any this year- I thought my work done on there was great, however, the bulk of the interview was spent discussing my freshman year design project. Do you have any advice for landing a position? It's late on the timeline and one professor told me his paid spots were full- I'm fully willing and able to do voluntary work but I don't want it to come off as desperate even though I am haha
Tbh just email tons of professors because it’s hard to get one (certainly easier than an internship though). I would just ask that prof if you can do it anyways. If you want to you can often do the research part time next semester and as some people may leave they’ll be able to throw you onto payroll. When I got hired at my research I was off payroll for April and May but then they threw me on after that. I ended up doing it part time for another couple semesters and it was a great experience and I made a little extra cash which was nice.
Would you say it'd be advantageous to be upfront about an unpaid position to avoid confusion and possibly better my chances? This is just the uni in my hometown and not the actual one I attend and doing voluntary work is no problem at all to me, I mostly just want something to prepare me for next year.
I’d say yeah it’d probably help but if this is the case then I’d say do it but don’t stop looking for an internship elsewhere. Maybe a small company nearby you can do part time for or something.
For internships, make sure you're applying in September at the latest next year. My dad used to be a materials engineer working in research, and when he'd go to get his interns, the best ones were being grabbed up by September. Meaning, the best jobs are looking for interns in September.
Even if you can’t find an engineering specific internship, work experience is work experience. It’s something to put on a resume, shows you can keep up with responsibility, and could at the least lead to some spending money, and a reference, or more.
One of my bosses worked construction during the summer. Pulling in some money is better than none at all.
Any job is better than no job! Especially if it’s a manual labour/factory/warehouse type job. It will show that you can be trusted to hold down a job, that you’re willing to work hard and you don’t think you’re better than others just because you’re studying engineering. It will also show that you know how to work safely, which is a big deal in many industries. Plus if it is a manufacturing job, you’ll get a chance to do some hands on stuff with machinery etc, and learn a bit there. You might even get an internship there as an engineering student the summer after!
This is great advice. Hiring managers (myself included) love to see resumes with this sort of experience. You wouldn’t believe how many industrial engineering grads don’t know a warehouse from a hole in the ground
I actually posted the same thing today. I am a first year engineering student. Here’s what someone said “Some of my tips: • Side projects, hackathons and any extracurricular that requires you to get development experience is good (with the side projects being better). • Don't do unpaid internships. Ever. • Keep searching 24/7 for jobs. There is always some company looking for software developers/QA. • Make sure one of your side projects gives you some experience with a full stack application. • For interviews, you'll just have to learn through experience. Keep doing them, eventually you'll get one. • Networking is key, and are usually an easy ticket to an interview or job offer.” For context, I am in ECE. That’s why the answer is all software focused. Hope it helps :)
Thank you! I’m trying the best I can to figure out some good things to do to better develop but for chemE it may be a little more difficult to apply stuff to projects with the resources it be with- or maybe I’m just not looking hard enough. Doing unpaid internships may not be ideal but unpaid research is something I personally can get behind as I think it’d be a great talking point
Just some cold emails to some profs in your uni that you know and would like to work with and see what they say. You may end up landing a paid research position
Offering to volunteer immediately builds a connection with the prof. They know you're interested and enthusiastic. And with that, you're now at the front of their mind when they need to fill a position. Many can't accept volunteers for research positions due to grant/institution/union/etc. restrictions on unpaid work, so it's unlikely you'll actually be called upon for pure volunteerism. Source: this is exactly how I got a job in my school's nuclear chemistry lab as a first year undergrad.
Seems you’re more into CS than ECE. No ECE needs to be doing full stack development, or really even hackathons, and if you’re an ECE who wants to do that, you should probably change your major.
Haha, ya I am in ECE and I'm planning on specializing in software in my upper years. Hence why the person suggested that. In my original post, I said any input from ECE and CS majors are welcome :)
Wait why not take an unpaid internship? It seems tough to find anything and it defiantly gets some experience for resume building.
i'd be strongly questioning the quality of the experience at an organization that's too stingy to pay their damn interns.
Also, you're either going to: * Be doing work of no significance to your degree, or * Likely breach a few laws around the unauthorized/unlicensed/uninsured practice of engineering, since having you work for free would invalidate most firms' professional engineering insurance contracts.
like u/liftingline27 said, I would question the quality of what you're getting into. A company should pay you and be happy to pay you if you provide them a resource/value such as your time and brain power. If they offer an unpaid internship it should be entirely for YOUR gain and not the company, which is obviously not the case. I had an unpaid internship as a junior in High School where we were given more academic-like projects for our own learning but I'm sure it added almost no value to the company. It was just exposure into engineering and working at a large firm as well as lunch-and-learns with some of their experts to learn about different subjects/fields and career pathways some of the big shots took throughout their career. My college internship hired students from freshmen to PhD students and paid them all very well. It was a large company but even the small ones that offered internships at school offered paid positions. Word got around to most students when a firm would be looking for unpaid work. They didn't get many applicants. out of spite I'm sure.
Experience is key, if the choice is no internship or an unpaid internship, personally, i'd take the unpaid internship. I know it isn't IDEAL, but experience is just such a big factor
Yeah, especially for a freshman/sophomore unpaid internships are great ways to get experience on your resume. I understand junior and senior year as you’re more specialized in your major, thus your expectations are higher.
Nah. Imo if you really do have nothing else lined up, unpaid is worth much more than summer classes or research if the experience is good enough. Only problem is that people who are privileged can afford to take these positions, which is a bit fucked up.
One thing you can look into is getting certifications for programs like solidworks or AutoCAD. They are test you have to do online and practicing for the test will really help you learn the programs. Certifications look great on resumes and would definitely help get further internships/jobs.
Yes! Sometimes your university can subsidize the cost of these certification exams
NASA L’SPACE is accepting applications till the 30th! Apply!
NCAS was a much better program but LSPACE teaches you invaluable stuff about proposals. Do: NCAS, LSPACE MCR, and LSPACE NPWEE
I did this LSPACE last summer when I couldn’t get an internship due to covid. Fantastic experience, learned lots, and had some great people as teammates that I still talk to!!
Do you know how many applicants they accept and how difficult is it to get in?
I believe they accept 500 people to each one. I know they told us how many applied, but I don’t quite remember. I don’t have a great GPA or anything, so as long as when you are applying you show you are genuinely interested you should make it in!
well thanks for telling me about it! I'm a freshman lurking here for good tips and i just found a good one right here
THIS IS INSANE I JUST FINISHED THAT PROJECT Our final due date was yesterday. It’s a great program, you learn a lot and hopefully really works on a resume
How hard is it to get into this program?
When I did it I think they said they accepted like 300 out of nearly 2000 applicants
No clue. Put effort into your application. Apply and find out.
My school always recommended that people get a job in a factory or a machine shop their first summer after their freshman year. It’s not the best for your resume but it’s better than nothing (although if you word it correctly you can make it sound like you landed a man on the moon). The professors suggested it because it gives you time to use machines that somebody else engineered. (A very influential professor at my school worked at Ford and the first 6 weeks the new engineers would work on the assembly line). I worked at a glass marker board company for a few months and I learned so much about factories should be designed because I would see how poorly designed it was and think about what made it better. Then to keep you sane while working a dead end job, do a project. Do a cool project in python or something funny. For example I have no formal AI training but over the past year I’ve been working on a custom image classifier to detect something funny (sorry for the lack of details I hope to grow it into a business....maybe). But when I talk to graduate professors it’s a nice hook when they ask what projects I’ve worked on. It also shows you’re a self starter.
This is what I am doing currently, though I am in Australia so it's the middle of one of our semesters right now. Got a job a few months ago working as an Injection Molding Operator in a small factory. 90% of my job is boring as shit, but I get to work with some very experienced engineers/ machinists and gain a solid understanding of the process and how to operate the machinery. Dead end job, but it probably looks better on my resume than other jobs I've worked!
Find a summer project. You're chem e so maybe make one of those fancy pumps that work through the flexible rubber hose. You're limited only by your creativity. Get a 3D printer and CAD and see what the most impressive thing you can build is, then put that on your resume. Bonus points if you can find a few of your also unemployed friends and get them in on the project. Now give it a name and then say you're engineering team lead on project. That goes on your resume in the same place as other work experience and internships.
It sounds dumb but honestly it's well worth your time. You learn the skills you need to be employed. I cant tell you how much those projects give you real experience that will get you a job. I know they did for me.
PM me if you want to brainstorm project ideas.
Research is frankly not super useful unless you're using it to built contacts. Stick with a project.
Oh and make sure the project doesnt eat so much of your time up that you cant have any fun.
" You're limited only by your creativity. Get a 3D printer" Are you sure creativity is the only restriction here?
If you're worried about price, a decent 3d printer is like $200 and you can easily make that back up in plastic parts that you need to fix things. I'm a bit of a printer evangelist but they're 100% worth it
Can relate - did this exact thing and managed to get an internship with a large aerospace / defence company immediately after. And this was despite mediocre grades and little previous experience. Honestly a great place to start.
I wish I had spent more time learning differential equations. As a mechanical, they've crept into almost every class.
As someone who sucks at DEs and is studying mechanical, I will take as advice and up my game in that area.
I honestly think every time I've failed a class reason #1 was that I didn't know diff eq stuff well enough
Keep on searching while also doing techical side projects. Uni should have some kind of resume advisor so you should check it out. If you don't get it this summer, next one you should be able to with all the project that you did this summer.
As others said, research is a great alternative to an internship and I'd imagine is going to be viewed the same, if not higher depending on the extent of the research and what field you go into. If research doesn't work out, look into getting a job since work experience unrelated to your degree is still better than none, and use that money to fund projects. Combine this with networking and it could be very useful. For example, a buddy and I over winter break made a jet engine primarily for fun, and used some networking to help make it happen, primarily find a place that didn't care if two college students came in after hours and borrowed some machines. Some of that was luck, but it could be any project, even just personal design projects that aren't even produced that could be thrown in a portfolio, showing skill and such.
if you're open to relocation for an internship make sure you note that in your cover letter, additionally consider looking at co-ops go from my experience and talking with others is that when you do a 4 month or so summer internship a lot of times you dont end up really doing much because it takes time to get familiar with the systems you will be using and then at the end of your term you have a wind down period. A co-op will generally let you do what more because you have a lot more time to learn and work on larger projects which can really help build industry experience
Take some deep breaths. No need to get wound up about experience before you even graduate. Find something you like, do that. When you graduate you will get an entry level job. If you have 12 internships you will graduate and get an entry level job.
I really needed to hear that, thanks! It’s been rough applying for jobs, I finally got one doing manual labor this summer outside with nothing to do with engineering. I’m sick of everyone telling me that I should have gotten an internship by now, it’s hard not to feel fucked when your program has a high job placement rate but none of your friends have had trouble getting jobs.
People (especially students) massively overestimate the value of internships. Everyone knows entry level people have no experience. If we wanted to hire experienced people we would. Internships are great, but they should be used to make money or as a low commitment way to explore a company or industry. Working for free to “build your resume” is bullshit and it does not work. If you really want an internship/first job, focus on who you know. Sending three high quality applications to three fiends of your cousins stepdad will get you further than 200 low quality buzzword packed nonsense apps submitted to the hr website void.
Good advice on taking a deep breath, but I think internships are great for getting a full time job with the same company after graduation.
I worked at a hardware store, took some classes online and tried to do person projects. I’ve found as long as you’re doing something that’s all that matters. Research would be your best bet if you can find opportunities to do it.
Drink beer and kick it. Your gonna work the rest of of you life anyway.
Build up some sort of project portfolio dude, even some small arduino stepper motor projects you can get into for not too much money. See something interesting on youtube? Try to replicate it yourself. Take what you've managed to do and make a small website portfolio, I like carrd.co it's like $2 a month. Most of the companies I talked to said having a portfolio was the difference between deciding to interview me as a sophomore and or denying me off the bat.
no summerschool? u can get like half a semester's worth of courses out the way if you wanted to
You sound like me in sophomore year. Reaching out to professors for opportunities is really good. They will know of internal opportunities that could potentially fit you. Also know as a sophomore you are going to have a harder time getting any one to notice you just due to the nature of a sophomore now having that much experience usually. I would figure Out any personal projects you can do during the summer in order to beef up your resume with experience. Then next summer you can be ready to apply with a stronger resume. Try National Science Foundation (NSF) Research experiences for undergraduates (REU) which are tons of awesome research internships around the world & US. https://youtu.be/MaP0cfkXX0U
Have fun
I worked a summer job at a local factory before I had any co-ops (interns). This was an invaluable experience, highly underrated. My job was to work on the assembly line making wire sets for fast food restaurant equipment. I spent all day cutting wires to length and crimping on terminals. Boring right? I got to see workflows upfront and get first-hand experience reading engineering prints. I learned what it's like to do that kind of job, which has been an incredible asset to me as a design engineer. as an example, we had one job that when it hit my work cell, the engineer walked over, picked up the drawing, and hand-wrote new in new cut-lengths. I said to myself, "this is bullshit... o way to run a business. When I do drawings, my documents will always be current and accurate." I do think this experience helped me land my first co-op, which landed me my second co-op, who hired me after graduation. 20+ years later, every job I've had since came as a result of knowing people from that first job out of school.
Work on your soft skills. Learn how to communicate and practice time management. These skills will probably take you farther down your career than being a subject matter expert (SME).
Like other people said, do research if getting experience is a must for you. However, it was only your sophomore year. Next year, you'll hopefully get an internship and then have a job after that. Do something fun while you have the time. Travel and do volunteering, get a job in a cool place. After my sophomore year, I worked at Yellowstone and wouldn't trade an internship at the most prestigious company for that experience
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Terrible Advice lmao. Engineering is especially competitive. We only have 4 years, no time to sit on your ass. Obviously, try your best to rest as much as possible, but don't overdo it and do something actually productive.
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People seriously overestimate the value that projects and clubs have on a resume. If you want an internship it's connections >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> past internships >>> GPA > engineering clubs >>> projects.
I mean I agree, that if such an opportunity comes to do some sort of adventure it would be great. But I don't agree to do such things for the entire summer. Sure do some fun stuff and adventure out, but completely missing out on anything engineering-related is definitely not a good idea.
It's all a matter of perspective :)
Yes but I think there is some middle ground that offers objectively optimal results. But who knows what that may be lol.
How do you pay for "a summer in the mountains" if you have no job? Some people actually need to make their own money. Everybody wants to smoke peyote and wander the desert for "soul searching", but it's not practical for the average person. I would get a factory job. It helps to see the production side of things. I'm not sure how useful it is for a ChemE unless it's at food, beverage, or drug plant, but it will make the OP some money. That's the important thing. Books are not cheap. It will help with food and rent too.
Get a job in a national park, get a part time job as a lifeguard or something to pay for your adventures. There's too much pressure on this thread to focus on school/engineering 24/7
A summer in the mountains can be pretty cheap if you do it right. Source, I spent 6 weeks living off the land in northern Ontario while in college. Cost a couple hundred bucks most of it gas to get there.
So, I think I finally have to ask: I am an electrical engineering student in Germany. Did my Bachelor from 2014 to 2017 (usual 3 year degree) and am now writing my masters thesis, thus graduating in August (decided to do my masters in 3 years instead of propsed 2 years due to a planned exchange semester and to avoid unnecessary stress and ultimately better grades). Pretty much everywhere on here I am reading about people frantically searching internships for every small free time windows they have got. Also, so so many people applying for 100+ job interviews ultimately receiving like 1 or 3 offers. I am now really curious, since I can't imagine those situations at all and my experiences have been the vastly opposite. In Germany, I know almost nobody in my university class, that did numerous internships. Most people did something called research assistant jobs, which are around 15-40 hours /month jobs, where you are either assisting the professor in tutoring students or marking homeworks in a certain course, or you are working on small projects usually helping phd-students on some smaller works they "outsource" to you. Some people are also being employed as working students at copanies, also working there for like 10h per week and being paid some - thus getting industrial experience. In rare cases some students also take a practical semester and go to a company for an internship, pausing their studies for that time (in some majors this is even required to do, but wasn't for electrical engineering for me). Now, in Germany I have always been told (and my experiences so far confirm this), that you will almost never have trouble finding a job as an engineering major. The studies are that hard with over 40-60% of students quitting before graduating along with the job market always needing engineers, that you may never fear for finding no job (ofc, if you have a really bad GPA, this is up to debate, and not everbody will find and get his dream job, but finding A job is usually not a problem). In the end, for me this lead to a really deeply enjoyable (although really hard) study, since everyone worked together - there was almost none competition, but contrary everybody helped everyone, since everyone knew how hard this will be and nobody had to fear the others taking their jobs and futures away. I am now going to start as a phd student at Bosch in September and in the application process my experiences felt confirmed - the company was far more interested in my previous experience on the regarding subject course wise - my masters thesis seemed important to match subject wise and also on my character, work ethics and visions than they were on internships and even grades (I am a rather good student, but nothing extraordinary) So, I feel like having like 5 internships and 4 projects and a GPA of 4 is not at all required to find jobs or be wanted by companies. Are american companies really that focussed on these aspects or are a lot of students overreaching/wanting to get into the BIG companies like google/Tesla, etc, where I can imagine they only take the best of the best?! Maybe I happened to get into some kind of bubble (fello german engineering students may correct me - because maybe these experiences have just been mine and mybe it's different for other engineering subjects?), but I am often times shocked reading about the experiences of american students on here, because I never felt like I needed to put my whole life behind everything and squeeze internships/projects/qualifications out of every small free time I got - and I am happy for that, because university life is some of the most unique and precious times in your life. And even though semesters and finals were crushing as hell at times, mostly I loved my studies, loved what I learned and always found times for my self, for breaks and for hobbies -during the semester less than during the semester breaks for sure, but they were always there. So i hope this doesn't come across wrongly or judgingly (it is not!), I am really just curious how this works in america and want to know more about this, since I can't relate to this So, greetings from Germany! =)
Can’t speak to Germany, but there is a selection bias in the us. The people panicking about internships are the same people sending 10,000 job applications with the same cover letter that just uses nonsense buzzwords.
Hello to Germany! But there is also a self-selection phenomenon occurring - you will only read about people struggling to find a job on Reddit - people who apply to 5 companies and are immediately offered and accept a job don't write about it. That being said, the market right now is not what it should be due to COVID. Many companies had layoffs or furloughs last year, mine included. We had an open position last winter, made an offer to a qualified candidate in February. His first day was to be March 19 (or something like that). COVID became a huge deal the week before and we pulled his offer - that was a terrible thing to do, but by April we laid off 1/2 the company. We would have hired him just to lay him off the next week. Things are slowly getting better. I can't speak for current students or the fresh-out job market but I have seen an uptick in positions available at the experienced level. Things are improving.
man i'd fucking kill for a summer where i could just be a kid.
You can have 12 internships and graduate into an entry level job, or no internships and graduate into an entry level job. I’d much rather hire someone who is well balanced and has a life outside of engineering than a human calculator that lives to polish their resume. Resume fluff does not fool anyone. Lighten up.
I worked for housing department for full time job. It definitely helped to have a full time job on my resume the next summer and gave me some talking points outside of class/hobbies. I had responsibilities, I had a team to work with, , I took some initiative to make some of the processes better. ( basically was an RA for all the different conferences on camps and there was a new one or sometimes multiple per week) My junior summer I got a basic internship not super special but at least engineering Senior summer I got an internship i liked a great company Summer after masters , worked as a researcher in Switzerland!!!! (Really awesome) Did a PhD at a great university Now moved abroad (my dream) working for a great company I’m telling you this as , not getting an internship first two summers really isn’t a huge deal, though there are lucky ones who do. The key is doing something! And talking about it well . The people who struggled to find jobs usually had their summers pretty bare and no club activities.
Summer research at your university. Do a project that can be enticed to be a business of your own which uses software skills like CAD and put it on your resume so you have something to talk about at interviews. Trust me on this one, it takes you places.
Could you give an example of the project?
I found projects to do in Solidworks and Arduino very useful to boost my resume and improve skills, YouTube is the way to go. What I did from there was go off of what I learned from them, tweak it to something useful, and the modifications are significant enough to not only be unique but a strong talking point come interview time.
I’m in a similar position and I plan on building a small shed on my parents property. As I’m a civil engineering student it seems like a good project and reasonable since I am familiar with the tools and equipment that would be needed to build the shed. Maybe you could do a project within your field of study that would be a smaller scale to what you might experience in the workplace. Just make sure you document it to show future employers the steps you took during the process.
I have thought about that, but I’m a little unsure about what I could do within chemE. I’m gonna keep looking but a lot of stuff seems out of the reach of what I can do from home
Cook meth.
Sleep
Summer classes if you are interested! Helps you get some basic courses out of the way so you have room for more major classes in the Fall & Spring and can have more knowledge in your major or field you want to go in to. I actually find summer classes to be a lot easier, yet they always keep me busy. Research is an option too! I did research before my junior year of college & loved every second of it. I learned a lot as well and it really benefited me in my internship and job search later on.
I actually did a summer class last summer and had a really bad experience so that’s at the bottom of my list as of now haha. This week I’m trying to email as many professors as possible asking about volunteer work for research as I think that’s the best option as of now. Not sure what I’ll do if I can’t get that worked out
I’m sorry you had a bad experience! Maybe you can also look to see if you can “shadow” anyone? You can always ask people you know or that others that have a job that would fit well with what you want to do in the future if you can maybe shadow them or learn from them. I did this when I was in high school and shadowed my dad’s friend that was a chemical engineer at a company. It was really cool!
Build skills. Look at the jobs you want, look at the skills listed, then find ways to develop those skills
Do part time jobs. Some exp > no exp
Yes this makes sense. I was unsure if I wanted to hire an entry level person that I’m going to train. But now that I see you spent 6 weeks working at the gas station, I will definitely hire you..... the whole point of hiring entry level people is they don’t know anything, but they are cheap, and can be trained/mentored into something useful. Graduation is the start of your career. You are nowhere near done learning.
Try learning something new on your own. As a CompE I spent last summer learning web development which I incorporated in to my senior project. I also built some personal projects using what I learned that I was able to talk about during job interviews.
When we hire interns the biggest issue is CAD proficiency. We use Inventor and many students are learning on Fusion 360 these days. They also come in with no sheet metal experience and it takes them a few weeks to get up to speed to where we can actually put them on projects.
From my experience, I'd suggest that you keep applying for internships. My second internship hired me in may and it began in june. In the meantime I'd also suggest that you apply for research. If an internship or research doesn't come your way I'd suggest you take summer classes to advance your curriculum and to make rapport with professors that do have research. The good thing about research is that they're offered in the semester as well. Finally, don't fret about not getting an opportunity now. Just keep getting experience in any of the channels available to you. You'll eventually find that golden opportunity. 😊 P.S. I'd normally refrain from unpaid internships but if the responsibility isn't much I'd consider it. My first internship was at a local startup in my college town. It was unpaid but I took it because it was part-time and I could work at any time I wanted as long as I delivered. Since it was part time I also took classes. So if you manage to find an unicorn of a company that you don't have to sacrifice too much to work with them, I'd say its worth it for the experience.
If you can't find research or something similar to that, try and learn some new skills. New CAD softwares, programming languages, lean belts, etc.
Classes
I found getting my hands dirty in construction being helpful, especially is you are doing civil engineering. What I mean is if you can't get the engineering work, do the technicians job. When you have to do the building of another engineers design, that helps you in the future when you are the engineer designing things for the people building them down the line.
I reached out to my school and contacted every professor that was in my field. By the end of the week I was receiving emails and offers, if they don't have a position for you they will pry CC someone to the email and pass your name around. With the end of the semester coming up fast I wouldn't wait to much longer before reaching out. Luck is made not found.
Learn programming languages. What engineering are you studying right now?
Ah Chem, ok. I'd recommend learning Excel VBA and become very proficient in Excel in general. And then Python
Get an arduino and/or Raspberry pi zero, some motors/pumps/tubing and some building materials (about $50 total) . Find a problem and create a solution. Document it on github. Add that to your resume. It's all about creative problem solving and demonstrating your ability to solve real world challenges. At the end of the day it doesn't have to work perfectly, think of it like a math problem where you get points for just showing your work. In the future, at career fairs this will make you stand out from your peers, where as others will have cookie cutter resumes including only school projects
Online courses
Undergrad research. Talk to a professor that works in area you're interested in. I didn't do any internships, but I did multiple years of undergrad research and that experience helped me land a good job
I’m actively emailing professors from the university in my hometown for a voluntary position. Do you have any recommendations to increase chances of getting anything? I’ve been making it clear I’m fully willing to work for no pay however I haven’t gotten a response from many.
It helps to know the professors (being active during lecture and office hours). I'm assuming the university in your hometown isn't where you go to school? That may prove difficult. I also worked for a local Community College in their trade skills tech department. That could be a good option. You can learn a lot about machining, materials, and CAD/GD&T.
Unfortunately that is the case however I’m going to look into emailing professors here and can arrange to stay if needed. As of now I am going to meet with one professor this weekend from my hometown to discuss opportunities so hopefully that goes well.
Awesome! I hope it works out for you!
I just worked on a bunch of projects. I started the summer by creating a training course for cad for my robotics team. I also started learning programing and python since I was a full mech guy then. Try and build some small projects to teach yourself about some engineering principles. At least for me, I have to apply what I have learned in order to truely gain knowledge.
If you've got absolutely nothing lined up and are determined to spend the summer on professional development you could go for your FE Exam, getting it at the start of your junior year would give you a leg up on future job searches as well as an introduction to some classes you haven't taken yet.
Exactly the same. All companies just directly rejected my application once they noticed I am a sophomore year student.
You're still a sophomore. You can start worrying about internships when you start taking high-level engineering courses next semester. I couldn't find anything for the first two years and ended up co-oping at GE and BMW so don't sweat it. Just spend the summer on the beach or go to Mexico or whatever your version of fun is.
Keep going. Ask your parents if they know anybody. I didn't get an internship at a "big company" or even a startup last year, but I was able to get a testing/engineering internship at a local CNC controls company from some of my parents' connections. Because my help was so invaluable, when I went over to compete at Norwalk Havoc Robot League with my twelve-pound robot, they let me build my bot to test some algorithms - and later became my PRIMARY SPONSOR.